Is it because Pierce Brosnan stars in the Netflix adaptation of The Thursday Book Club that he’s cited as the best James Bond. Perfectly reasonable, but no need to dis the Dalton.
That aside, THE IMPOSSIBLE FORTUNE – which could be the perfectly legitimate title for a Bond film, come to think of it – is a welcome addition, the fifth in the series of the Thursday Murder Club by the Wodehouse worthy, Richard Osman.
Murder and a missing person and the marriage of Joyce’s daughter, Joanna, all entwine in an entertaining romp through family, fraud, and a fortune that seems impossible but plausible, plunging Elizabeth, Ron, Ibrahim and Joyce into a cracking yarn of cracking codes, both digital and moral.
Yes, the gang’s all here and all the well do we care, how they navigate the nefarious shenanigans that are afoot. A new supporting cast of crooks and coppers enliven proceedings, villainous and vicious, suspicious minds, turning blind eyes, red herrings, scapegoats, stool pigeons – a menagerie of suspects, perpetrators and innocent bystanders.
Assassins, bombers, aristocrats and bovver boys and a fugitive holed up in a roadside Travelodge for eight and a half weeks- torture!
Mr. Osman bridges the gap between the facts of life and the state of imagination or dreaming, an adventure in which you are enticed to see more than the things before your eyes. The things seen are just not the view; they are windows that open up.
THE IMPOSSIBLE FORTUNE is another charm offensive crime caper, off beat and upbeat, unafraid of the poignant being given free reign amongst the cosy and the comfortable, a novel that is emblematic of an enabling and ennobling elder cohort, a dotage defying addition to a series of deserved best sellers.
And, if it is filmed, there is a plumb role for Timothy Dalton.
THE IMPOSSIBLE FORTUNE by Richard Osman is published by Penguin Viking.
